Cowboy Cavalier

Back in the day when westerns were just ground out by the minor studios in Hollywood a background in country music was always the path to a career as a singing cowboy. Such was the case for Jimmy Wakely who was just coming off a cross over hit with Margaret Whiting in the pop hit parade, Slipping Around. Cowboy Cavalier was one of several films he made as a cowboy hero. Although he was no actor, Wakely had some nice notes in his voice.

Here with Dub Taylor as sidekick who has a photography hobby Wakely works running a freight line. No good ex-convict Douglas Evans comes to work and starts romancing the boss's daughter Jan Bryant. Going out of his way not to get his picture taken should be setting off alarm bells, but not at first.

This one looks like Sam Katzman butchered it in the cutting room. But people who watched this stuff were used to filling in the gaps in films like Cowboy Cavalier.

Lance Regan (Douglas Evans) is a bad, bad man.

This is obvious from the outset: not only does he sport a thin moustache - a B western giveaway if ever there was one - but he refuses to be photographed by comic sidekick Cannonball Taylor and, horror of horrors, actually sneers a little as Jimmy Wakely sings his first number.

No surprise then that, later in the movie, he ill-treats a horse and gets a whopping from Jimmy for his trouble.

There are chases, fist fights and shoot-outs: Jimmy sings three songs and Cannonball falls into the horse trough.

As a bonus there's a good performance from Claire Whitney as wicked Regan's blackmail victim: she really acts! I liked it very much.

Douglas Evans asks for a job with Claire Whitney's shipping company, explaining that he used to be a guard at a prison. Foreman Jimmy Wakely fires him when he doesn't try to stop some robbers, but Miss Whitney gives him back his job. What they don't know is that Evans hadn't been a guard, but a prisoner, and is colluding with some henchmen to steal an ore shipment.

It's another attempt by Monogram to promote Jimmy Wakefield as a singing cowboy. There's some decent writing and Dub Taylor (credited as "Cannonball") for comic relief, but Mr. Wakefield, while a good singer, can't hold the viewer's attention sufficiently, nor does the director make the mistake of having him try to.

Jimmy wakely plays... jimmy wakely. He and sidekick cannonball help out the croft family when their stages are getting held up. It's just okay. Lots of really rough edits. The picture quality is surprisingly good, for such an old western. Wakely stands like a cardboard character... never seems to know what to do with his hands. And is a better singer than actor. And why did he start shooting from so far away when the stage was being held up? Kind of a plot hole pot hole. Not much of a story.. can't really recommend this one. There are so many better westerns, with better actors. Directed by derwin abrahams. Interesting... imdb thinks this is 57 minutes, but the tcm version is only 55 minutes. Were another two minutes cut out? Incidentally, there were also films with the same title in 1928 and 1929, but those seem to be lost.